


Recollections

by Bubblegum_monroe



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Other, anyway, most of it is asra centered, random shit im importing from my tumblr account
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 15:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16936140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubblegum_monroe/pseuds/Bubblegum_monroe
Summary: The morning routine. As it has always, and will always, be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Barely NSFW content for the first four paragraphs.

_He holds her close to him, one set of fingers digging into her waist while his other hand grips her hair at the base of the skull. The already warm day seems even hotter in their room, her bouncing and sliding along the length of his cock. The oil they’d used for added lubricant glistened on their thighs with each movement, caught by the late afternoon sun. She moans in his ear and he feels her fingernails scratch at his shoulder blades, it only ever encourages him to thrust upwards where he can to match her pace._

_She whispers his name, then says it again louder. There’s a crackle in the air as she gets closer to her climax. Lightning dances along the length of her hair and little chains of electricity dance along from eyelash to eyelash. She herself is a storm, one that he is happy to immerse himself in._

_He tugs harder on her hair, pulling her head back. There are red marks all along her neck already but he has no issue making more, slow and composed regardless of how ready he is to finish right then and there. His mouth travels ever southward, from bites to the neck and collarbone to open mouthed kisses to the soft flesh of her breasts. His teeth graze her skin. As though if he could, he could merely eat and bite his way into her heart. Live inside the cavity of her chest. He would love to. He would_ love  _to._

_“Asra,” She gasps, grinding against him, “_ Asra–”

* * *

 

He wakes up to a heavy object hits his abdomen, the wind knocked out of him as Eos’ ever cantankerous familiar lands on him from the top of the armoire her family had sent her as a belated birthday gift. She’d yet to find a buyer for it and had the same amount of love for it as he did. Which was next to none, unfortunately for them. 

Giving the cockatrice a dirty look he carefully pushes them to Eos’ side of the bed. Which, he noted, was absent of the aforementioned magician. And cold. She’d been gone for some time then. 

The cockatrice gave a hiss when he moved them but made no effort to lash out with that beak or those claws, instead curling up against one of the numerous pillows and getting to work on napping the rest of the morning away. Faust was no where in the immediate vicinity either. Likely wherever Faust was, so was Eos. There was no noise from the shop below, just the occasional rattle of a sudden burst of wind against the window shutters. 

Rather than reach out to his own familiar to solve the mystery, he got out of the bed. Messy with previous  _activities_ and general movement during the night. Though he was tempted to remain in bed and deal with the reaction to his dream, the day apparently held some importance if Eos was nowhere to be seen just yet. 

He pushed aside the curtain that designated ‘bedroom’ from the rest of the open space in the upper level of the building. Stretching his arms above his head soon after, a deep crack resounding from his lower back. 

There was no note left on the table from Eos, so it wasn’t as though she’d gone somewhere particularly important, or had intended to. Though the stove salamander was working to keep their tin tub warm with a small pile of various sticks and dried bugs within the salamander’s reach. He headed over, using his magic to lift the tub towards the bath while he brushed the pile closer to the salamander. 

As always, Eos found some way to make the morning smoother while she was gone. His heart swelled as it did every time she did, well,  _anything_. 

He pulled a few bottles off of the shelves, Eos’ personal stock of soaps and perfumes were starting to run low. He made a note to himself, for the next time he visited one of the neighbouring city states to buy her more. She loved the smell of roses and lavender.   
He put the tin tub down near the bath. Dipping a washcloth into the hot water to bathe himself, lathering the soap and rubbing it into his skin before applying his own stock of perfumes. It was by no means the hygiene ritual he’d have on his travels, so he tended to make the most of it while he had the chance. 

Lifting the water, rather than the tub itself, he bent over the bath to wash his hair. Letting the water run through the white shock of hair before shaking the excess off. Eos would scold him for it if she’d been around, but, since she wasn’t there was no issue. 

He was finishing getting dressed when he heard the creaking of the ladder that lead up to the second floor and felt Faust’s presence come closer. He adjusted his scarf around himself when Eos’ hand popped up from the open trap door. Placing a basket covered with a handkerchief on the floor before beginning to climb up. He wasted no time in heading for it, crouching down to hold out his hand for her to take as she ascended. 

Her hair wasn’t in the usual ponytail, it looked tidy and brushed with a clean sheen to it. He must’ve been sleeping deeply to not have woken up throughout her doing all of that hair.

She had another basket hooked through her arm, a pile of envelopes lying on top of the handkerchief. As she came up, her hand in his, she pressed her lips to his. Soft, chaste, but not without the liveliness she seemed to be filled with today. 

“Morning,” She whispered, squeezing his hand and taking the last step up onto the floor. He picked up the second basket and followed her to the kitchenette. Putting the two baskets side by side and helping her sort out what she’d gathered from the market this morning. “I decided to go early today, one of the farmer’s said that they’d been gifted an interesting collection of eggs from some foreign passerby. I wanted to see some before they got bought out by everyone else.”

He wrapped an arm loose around her waist, peering over her shoulder as she lifted two rather large blue eggs out of the basket. Considering their size, he wondered what she thought he could use them for. It wasn’t like he knew the exact equivalent of chicken eggs to… Whatever sort of egg this was. 

“What, ah, are these exactly?” He picks up one of the eggs in his hand. There were white speckles all over it, like the night sky. “They’re pretty.” 

“I don’t know!” She’s cheerful as she says it, continuing to pick things out of the basket. She keeps herself tucked comfortable against his side. He’s happy to oblige, putting the egg down and hugging her tighter. “I figured we could make something out of them, omelettes or something like that.” She pulls out a few paper wrapped items, the scaly tails peeking out hinting at the identity of the creatures within. Skinks. Which meant she’d gone searching for someone who’d managed to catch them while travelling to Vesuvia or while hunting for larger prey. He kisses her cheek and the world is warm. 

“That sounds nice, have you eaten yet? We could start on that now.” He brings his face close to hers, essentially nuzzling her cheek as she finishes with the sorting and picks up the envelopes she’d accrued before coming inside.

“Perhaps in a minute, let’s-” She cuts herself off, lifting up one of the letters with a particular wax seal. She runs her fingers over the seal. “Let’s, um, let’s feed Garbage and Faust first.” She tosses the letter back onto the bench, dropping it as though it burnt her. 

“Is that from… them?” He asks, his voice soft. Her arm reaches around his waist, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. If he could he’d shield her from everything, from the whole world. From every remnant of a lonely, neglected, past she’d wanted to leave behind when she remembered it for a second time. 

“… Yes,” She sighs not soon after she says it, her free hand coming up to link her fingers with his. Pad of her thumb rubbing against her skin. She never thought there would be an aspect of who she had been that she didn’t want to remember, and yet… “I’m not even going to look at it. C’mon.” She separates from him, but keeps hold of his hand to tug him along. She grins, and he doesn’t press the topic. He grins, and she forgets the letter ever came.

Together, they gather up the last of the old store of mice for the cockatrice and for the snake. Setting them out, opening the windows for the former to leave through when they were done and bored. The day’s air is clear and carries with it the smell of food market and the gardens throughout the city. When they are done they hover over each other at the stove. Asra chops onions, capsicums, and mushrooms while Eos coaxes the salamander into starting the fire again to heat up their largest frying pan. When the fire starts, Asra has already finished with the vegetables and ties her hair up while she makes sure the salamander has the fuel to keep the fire going. Then they grate cheese and chop herbs together. 

She tells him of the newer market stalls set up by people passing through the city. Of the new wares that she’d seen and how lively the city seemed. The cockatrice flies through the window half way through their making of their own breakfast, and Faust leaves not too soon after. Off to their own adventures, their own business. 

They crack one of the eggs, pour it into the pan and whisk it. They add their ingredients, they cook the egg and all it’s side benefits. Breakfast is easy, and simple. Just like the rest of their morning. They line their eyes with khol after breakfast, continuing their morning ritual. Eos paints her lips, mixing a purple powder to a viscous substance and applies it to her mouth with a small brush. A different powder is dusted over her cheekbones, one she shares with Asra for his own highlighting needs. She tries to convince him to let her brush his hair, and he dodges it with a kiss to the side of her mouth and a promise of ‘later’ that won’t get fulfilled. She never minds and he knows it. 

The letter is forgotten and left unopened for a majority of the day. Eos and Asra both too caught up in domestic life, and then too caught up in the shop below, to really give it any thought. 

They forget, and their minds are lighter for it.


	2. Wilderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear Wilderness,   
> Be at your best.

It is the month before he leaves for the first time, and he has taken them into the forest to gather herbs. The sunlight filters in through the gaps between trees and makes patterns on the foliage beneath their feet. The day is as warm as his chest feels, filled with an endearment for the human being before him. Carefully trying to cut bunches of wolfsbane with the knife he’d supplied them for the day’s outing. They would hang them up later, and let them dry before storing them or they would distill them to sprinkle around the shop to deter vermin. 

He sits against the trunk of a tree with his eyes closed, or mostly closed. They’ve asked to take the lead. To have a go at doing everything themselves rather than have him hovering over them. He obliged. They were no longer the shaking fawn they had once seemed to be. Now instead they had an inner light, the fire for independence mixed with memories that were more smoke than tangible things to recall. He could only give them what had already been theirs. 

He pretends he isn’t watching as they scamper back towards him. The same skip in their step that they’d had when the two had met all those years ago. He opens one eye the slightest bit as they hit the ground on their knees next to him. Crashing against his shoulder and holding their fists stuffed with herbs and wolfsbane in front of his face.

“Asra! Did you bring enough jars for us to put these in?” They’re beaming and it’s contagious. He can see their pride radiating out of them. They were proud to have done something without his supervision, proud to not have to be watched like a child.  
For him, it was restorative. Not restoring himself, but healing them. For them to regain parts of themselves, whether they knew it or not, made his heart swell in his chest. 

“Hm? Well, let’s see shall we?” He digs into the pack at his side. Pulling out a jar for each of the herbs and flowers they’ve cut for them to take back home. He sits up properly, laying the jars out, open, on the ground in front of them. Together they begin to sort out the thick bouquet of various plant life they’d gathered and put them into the jars. 

Two jars of sage and rosemary, a half jar of saffron, thyme and parsley. One full jar of basil and sumac each. One and a half for the wolfsbane. There is wild onions and various berries thrown into other jars to be sorted out later.

He reaches for the next flower they’ve gathered, bringing the next jar closer to him to put it in before he pauses. Looking closer at it. It’s pretty, that’s for sure. But certainly not on their list or with any real value for alchemy or medicine.

“Ah, did you forget what–”

“No!” They interrupt quickly, for a moment looking embarrassed then regaining their composure just as quick. His concern, along with his curiousity, is piqued. “I, well, those are for you. Since you’ve done so much for me.” They scratch at the side of their face, dirt smearing on their cheek from their fingertips. He laughs, and tucks the flower behind their ear. Their grin returning when his joviality returns. 

He would do anything to protect that grin. He would ask the world itself, nature in all it’s glory, to be merciful. To not do as it must and be gentle around them, for them. If he could rearrange the world, it would be that much softer for them so that their happiness could never come into jeopardy. 

“That’s very sweet of you.” He hums, turning his head to allow them to thread a few flowers into his hair. It is a warm moment, a fond one. 

* * *

It is three weeks until he leaves for the first time and he has taken them to a field to practice their magic, to  _use_ it. 

But first, he watches them from atop of a hill as they run through the long grass. Outside of the city’s walls and noise. The world is lit up with gold. He turns his face up towards the sky, closes his eyes, and smiles at the sun. Feeling the light warm his skin. 

He hears their footsteps come towards him at the same fast pace they’d run from him at. He opens his eyes and looks down just in time to see their face, full of joy and reckless abandon, before they tackle him to the ground with their arms around his waist. 

They are laughing, he is laughing. His own arms coming around to hug them as they lay on the ground. He loved them, and once they loved him. But he has always been their friend first and foremost, and he is more than glad to sink into these moments with them.   
They are wearing a tunic they’d gotten from a client as repayment for a particularly expensive salve. It is soft, silky. He squeezes them before he lets them go. Standing up once they have run out of the energy to laugh and helps them up.

That day they light up the sky with a second sun made of various spells and magic. They make the wind and set fire to the air. Their control impeccable for one who remembers so little. He tells them he is proud, that they are so strong and so talented. That their hard work is paying off. He tells them this and does not mention the slight red in the whites of their eyes. Though his heart lurches every time for many different reasons.  
The plague is gone, he reminds himself, so why have they been crying then?

* * *

It is a week before he leaves, and it is raining. They are sitting near the window, having of helped him push the bed towards it, with a hot cup of tea in their hands. Though by now they have seen the rain so many times, they never fail to be amazed or captivated by it. 

“It’s like,” They would always start when he asks, “I know I must have been someone, before I lost everything and all that, so I just want to appreciate these little things, y’know? Just in case I didn’t before.”

_You did_ , he wants to tell them as he sits next to them on the bed. Faust unravelling from him and wrapping around their shoulders.  _You loved the rain and the sun, you danced in both and it loved you as much as you loved it_. He wants to say it. So instead he bumps their shoulder with his own and asks them if they’d been practicing their magical theory. They stick their tongue out at him and they fall into a comfortable silence. Watching the rain as it goes from a drizzle to something far heavier with harsh hale crashing against the glass pane. Lightning strikes the world around them.

He knew that if they wanted to, they would walk out into the storm and trust it to never hurt them. He knows this, because he knows them better than they know themselves. 

“ _Wet!”_ Says Faust, tightening that little bit around them. Tongue flicking out to ghost over their cheek. They grin, looking to him.

“I’m going to catch a storm one of these days, just you wait. I’ll put it in a jar, just for you.” 

* * *

It is the night after he left the first time and he is lonely. 

He is not lonely in the sense that he enjoys it. Being able to enjoy his own company, the ability to be okay without others around, has always been innate. But after so long with someone by his side, before the plague and after, when someone relied on him, it feels unusual.   
Right now, he cannot enjoy his own company as it is. 

He lies down at his camp. The beast asleep, and Faust hunting down mice and small rats to eat. He closes his eyes, and he dreams. 

When he dreams, he thinks of sunlight and flowers. Of magical lights and lightning trapped in jars. He thinks of soft clothes and softer hair, of warm skin and the simple joy of laughter shared with another person. 

When he dreams he smiles. And in a city a few hundred miles away from where he is, the subject of his dreams sits on their shared bed and looks out the window with a jar in their hands. Waiting for the biggest storm to trap in a tiny jar so he would have reason to not leave again.

It does not storm while he is away, and the second time he leaves, they wait for the storm. The third time, the fourth, the tenth and the thirtieth. The storm is never where they need it to be.


	3. Red Ribbons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate AU swiftly followed by a modern day AU. You know how it is.

Usually, when your soulmate dies, the ribbon merely goes lax. Cut off in the middle. You could untie it, or keep it, and one day when you were ready a new one would find a way around your wrist, or finger, or ankle. Love was not something you had but one chance at. It could always grow again.

Asra’s ribbon had always been tied around his neck, on display with pride and a love for soneone he hadn’t met yet. When he did meet them, he would clutch that ribbon like a life line. Longing for their company, wanting to hear their voice.

Usually, when your soulmate dies, the ribbon merely goes lax. You could untie it, or leave it, and when you were ready a new one would come to you.

Usually.

He’d been far away when it happened. Hadn’t seen the flames rushing along the ribbon in time. It scorched his neck, creating the perfect burn mark, a reminder, and leaving no trace of the ribbon behind. He’d clutched at ashes, hoping for a small piece to remain uncharred but the fire was merciless. He’d known long before he arrived at The Lazaret that the love he left behind had died.

Years later, someone with a familiar face, voice, and life, would ask him about his golden necklace that clung tight to his neck.

He would touch it, remember the mark that his choices left behind, before smiling and changing the subject.

A new ribbon appeared one morning, peeking out from underneath the golden choker. He left the day it appeared.

* * *

 

There’s nothing quite like driving down a highway with the window open so the air can blow through your hair.

There’s a technicolour camper van flying down the highway, even in the bright light of midday it seems to glow among the endless orange dirt and barely green trees that line either side of the road. There’s an arm resting in the open window on the driver’s side. The sun is warm and home is almost within sight. The radio plays the next song on the cassette tape, and the hand free from the steering wheel taps on the side of the car along to the tune. A familiar voice singing out to the driver.

“… _See the pyramids along the Nile_  
 _Watch the sunrise from a tropic isle_  
 _Just remember darling all the while_  
 _You belong to me…”_

The driver switches his hands on the steering wheel, bringing his left hand up to his mouth to kiss a ring on his finger. A smile snakes across his graceful features, there is a fine golden dust on his cheekbones that shines in the sunlight. However, it is his hair that is blinding. The fluffy shock of white hair that adorns his head, momentarily covered up by a scarf typically seen in movies made during the 1950′s. The style suits him and the car. Which is to say it is quite bohemian when it comes to patterning. 

There is a movement in the back of the van as another resident of the car moves about. A beautiful snake, just barely waking up from a nap, now moving to wrap around the passenger side seat.

“Have a nice nap, Faust?” He smiles at the sight of the snake, red eyes looking to him and tongue flicking out. That’s as good of an answer he’ll get really. He can’t read minds, he assumes the answer is a yes.

_“…See the market place in old Algiers_   
_Send me photographs and souvenirs_   
_Just remember when a dream appears_   
_You belong to me…”_

There’s pictures taped along the interior of the car. Pictures of famous landmarks, pictures of people, of exotic food and other things. There’s a few selfies as well, taken with a few more of the iconic food items and landmarks. A couple pictures are just of sunrises and sunsets, beautiful and colourful. Some have a few words written on the backs or in the white space beneath the photos. Dates, locations, the people he met along his travels. 

It is a deeply personalised space. It has to be, there’s a large chunk of the year where this is his home. He really wouldn’t have it any other way. There was nothing like travelling, being on the road, going to different countries and just driving. Meeting new people, experiencing new things. It was the life of someone who was free, and he loved it. 

Of course, that didn’t mean there weren’t things waiting for him now, that he’d left behind. There was his apartment he shared, a studio loft to be precise. He had a nest of pillows to sleep in waiting, a grumpy an enigmatic cat he didn’t own but still lived with. He had a store he sort of worked at. Friends, family, and someone who was more than that.

He missed those things, those people, while he was travelling of course. But you couldn’t ask someone to pack up their lives with you and roam around. If he did, he might never come back. Not everyone had the luxury of leaving it all behind. He couldn’t fault them for it no more than they could fault him for his lifestyle. 

_“…And Ill be so alone without you_   
_Maybe you’ll be lonesome too and blue_   
_Fly the ocean in a silver plane_   
_See the jungle when it’s wet with rain_   
_Just remember till you’re home again_   
_You belong to me…”_

The dirt and trees gave way to city buildings and building up traffic. He put his foot on the brake pedal, slowing the car down and winding his window up again. People sometimes had a particularly nasty habit of throwing cups out their car window that  _still_ had some liquid inside of them. He’d learned his lesson about that many times over.

The city wasn’t so bad, it wasn’t the open road but it had perks. Chinese restaurants, places where you could indulge in Indian or Middle Eastern cuisine. There was also Hungry Jacks. The burgers are better at [H](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dp954EFd0VMI&t=NGQ4YTJjMzBkZDNiMDM0YjVmMzdjOGIwOTAzMDdhYjE4NTVjODcwMSxLVUd3RlY2MA%3D%3D&b=t%3A61MdBEGfHlphRL3CPKpa_A&p=http%3A%2F%2Fbubblegum-monroe.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179548923325%2Fmodern-au-with-asra-coming-back-from-a-trip-mc-of&m=1)ungry Jacks, that’s what they say anyway. 

“… _Maybe you’ll be lonesome too and blue_  
 _Fly the ocean in a silver plane_  
 _See the jungle when it’s wet with rain…”_

It wasn’t too long before he was able to pull away from the main road of the city and into the smaller but still commercial streets. It did take him longer to find a park along those roads though. In the end he pulled up into a carpark alongside a supermarket. Taking Faust gentle from the passenger seat after he shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders. It was high time he went home anyway, but first, one stop.

This particular store was tucked away, in an unfortunate location. The clever use of neon lights and advertisement had luckily allowed it to still have a steady stream of customers that went in looking for the  _authentic_ stock. Not the cheap and mass produced kind of items. It was genuinely a beautiful store. Giant crystals– that weren’t for sale he’d asked– surrounded by smaller versions of themselves on display. Hand pained tarot cards were seen through the windows.

The bell atop the door sounded when he entered. Announcing the presence of someone new coming through the doors. A familiar voice called out to him, the source currently placing some stock on a high shelf. Their ladder wobbling a little dangerously.

“Just a minute! We’ll be right with you.”

He came up silently behind them, waiting until they’d just gotten the stock to settle before bringing his hands around their waist and twirling them away from the shelf, laughing all the while. His victim had stiffened initially, but relaxed and twisted around in his arms to hug him once the recognition was there.

“…  _Just remember till you’re home again_  
 _You belong to me.”_

He kissed them, deep and filled with the longing for them that he’d had during his recent trip. He could feel the way they’d missed him through the tightness of their grip and the press of their body against his. 

“It’s good to be home.”


	4. Necromantic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let Asra reveal his necromancy kink 2k18

Even now the skull shakes, the fissures and cracks from intense heat glow in the relative dark of the room. The skull makes up for most of the light, really, the candles despite their numbers can’t pierce the dark shroud that has been cast over the room. They flicker and rise up in huge bursts in response to the magic, but their light remains dim and no heat comes through the air. In any other circumstances, he might be more worried than he is. 

The one  _good_ thing about the plague was that it left no shortage of bodies. People died so quickly now, almost like the plague was working faster and faster. It had even infected the count behind his pristine walls.

Asra should be working to find that cure.  
Asra shouldn’t be here.  
Asra shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.

He’d left the palace during the night, slipped out from the quarters every ‘expert’ who had joined the search for the cure lived in. It wasn’t hard, not with Faust as a look out and his magic to aid him. He finally had everything, and he couldn’t risk getting delayed now. Not with such a full and bloody moon hanging in the sky. An eclipse would’ve been ideal, but he’d have to wait years for that. Years he didn’t want to spend alone. 

He’d trialed this previously, in the store with Julian’s blood, though he loathed to have that interruption it had served to give him the information he required. That this  _could_ work. He’d just need more flesh, more bone, and more blood. 

He’d taken bodies from carts that were to be loaded onto boats and sent to The Lazaret during the night. Just a few, no one anyone could ever miss, and it wasn’t like they were going to be doing anyone any favours when they became ash. No proper burials, ashes scattered with sand and more ashes, here they had  _purpose_. A noble purpose. 

The skull grew brighter, the vibrations getting louder and scattering some of the ash he’d carefully arranged on the floor. With a steady hand he brushed the ash back into place with a small brush. It wouldn’t be too much longer now, not with the amount of magic he was pouring into this. Aided and amplified by a few choice items either taken from the palace or found in hidden areas around the world. They’d been curiosities once. But now he  _knew,_  he could see he was meant to find them. Every magical artefact was supposed to be his, for  _this_ night, for  _this_ ritual. It was fate. Fate telling him that mistakes could be undone, that life and death were challenges to be overcome. Death would mean  _nothing_ here. 

He’d spend endless days on the shores of The Lazaret, separating ash from soil from ash. Not sleeping, barely eating. Magic helped but even then he had to be careful, specific. It was hard. Ash was ash, but the ash he needed had to be from the one source. He did it, he overcame it. 

Now that ash was on the floor in a particular and familiar pattern. The outline of a body he knew well and would know again. Even down to the little details of hair. Everything arranged just  _so_ with the skull topping it all off. The bodies he’d taken were laying on the edges of the circle he’d drawn up. They were the donors but they weren’t important when it came to  _detailing._  They were paint, and he the artist. 

The moon shone bright through the window of the store, the usually strong beams unable to pierce the barrier that had been erected around the circle. No outside forces could interfere with this, everything had to be just right.

He slams his hands down onto the ground, head bowing between the false legs of his ash drawing, magic pouring out of him in droves and tsunami waves. His magic was the winds of a hurricane and the blindingly bright skull was the eye of the storm. Outside of the circle, items were being tossed left and right. The room destroyed before him but he couldn’t care less about it. It wasn’t important. The only important thing right then was what was in front of him.

It only took a moment longer, for the flesh of the bodies he’d taken to start to melt. It was barely noticeable at first, a slight droopiness perhaps. But then their skin gave way and it dripped down onto the floor, running along the grooves carved into the stone towards the centre where the skull had been placed. First the skin, then the flesh, bone following soon after accompanied by blood. Each ingredient melting down under the force of his magic and joining together at the centre. Running over the skull and swallowing it up. 

He’s sweating now. It drips off of him like rain, but he can’t stop. He is so close and if he doesn’t do this now he may never do it again. His shirt sticks to his back, and the floor becomes slick under his palms.

The flesh bones and blood layer over each other, slowly forming a gruesome sight. For a second, he doubts. Was this how it was meant to be? This looked nothing like what he thought it would, had something gone wrong?

It is only for a second. But the process halts, as though it were listening to him, and begins to recede.

He pours more magic into the circle, giving it more of himself. He would see this through. He didn’t even notice that he was screaming from the exertion and pain. 

It starts up again, faster this time. Flesh over blood over bone, flesh over blood over bone, flesh over blood over bone. Limbs forming before his very eyes. First the shoulders, the arms, everything working it’s way towards him. Flashes of light come from the bloodied head that had formed. Reds, purples, yellows and greens. The room becomes too bright, it hurts to look but he won’t turn his eyes away. He needs to see this for himself. The walls shake, the windows break, but he only cares for this.

Time seems to slow down as the body completes itself, and skin forms over the gory mass that was the head. Hair sprouting, colour returning to cheeks and lips. It takes but a few minutes more before it seems complete. Like the person he is holding himself above could merely be sleeping rather than newly remade. 

His arms shake violently, only barely able to hold himself up, but he won’t fail now. He reaches for a piece of glass fallen just inside the confines of the circle, and cuts his palm, the blood splatters over the body before him and with a final burst of magic…

They breathe. 

It isn’t a huge gasp and a frantic movement of limbs. It is a careful and gentle opening of the mouth and a slow inhale. 

He collapses then, magic completely spent maybe even dangerously so. His body lies across the one of his reborn love. His chest shakes and clenches as sobs choke his throat and spill from his lips like a fountain. He is in pain, so much pain, and he is so tired. It is all a sacrifice made not in vain. For everything he wants is now right here. 

A hand moves, limbs floating and movements almost unearthly, it strokes his hair. Slow, methodical. As though it were both to comfort and to test the new limits of this body. The finger tips are cold against his skin, but not unpleasant.

He turns his head to look his love in the eyes.

Where there had once been colour, there was a pure milky white. As though no pupil or iris had ever formed. There is a scarce hint of recognition, but time moves like molasses now. He lays his head on his love’s chest. Their muscle memory alone guides them to stroke his hair, and look around the room. There is no understanding, no acknowledgement, not yet. For now, this would be enough.

It takes hours before Asra is ready to move, longer until he is able to. The rhythmic stroking of his hair had not ceased or faltered until he moved. Holding himself above his unmindful love, he breaks the circle. Light returning to the room in one fell swoop. Every candle dying down to a small flame and the moonlight finally strikes the glass that had scattered about the room. 

He stands and takes his love’s hands, pulling them up gentle with him. They blink slowly, by now there was the slightest hint of colour beyond white in their eyes. Their hands are smooth, cold, and grip onto Asra’s. Recognition grows stronger now but not strong enough yet. 

His heart clenches in his chest, swelling and pressing against the confines of his ribcage. Overcome and overwhelmed by the emotions that are swirling inside of him at the sight of his love standing before him once again.

A sigh escapes from their lips and they lay their head against Asra’s shoulder. Not quite all there yet, but as time passes the unearthliness of their resurrection leaves them. 

“ _Asraaaaa…”_ Their voice is slightly different, a slight echo to it where there shouldn’t be but he ignores it. Holds them tight and picks them up in his arms to carry them from the room. They could stay in the upper portion of the building for now, he’d lock the trapdoor behind them so they could rest and then they could leave this cursed city behind them. 

“ _Asraaaaaaaa…”_ Their fingers grip onto his shirt, holding him close. Their tongue hanging onto the sound of his name.

“Welcome home.”

 

 


	5. Love Exists

Love is a powerful feeling.

Love is like fire. Love is bringing what is dead back to the world of the living. Love is sacrifice and devotion. Giving up the best parts of yourself, to give someone else the chance to lead the best possible life they can. Even if it means you’re not in it. 

Asra has loved them for a very, very long time. Through ongoing seasons of coming, staying, leaving, returning, what remains left of his heart has been devoted to them. To restoring them to who they had been, to letting them live out their second chance however they now saw fit.  
Once, Asra had left them behind and in consequence they had died. Burned alive, sick with plague. He blamed himself.  
He still blames himself. 

Once, Asra had brought them back. Incomplete. Traded half of his heart for them. Insufficient. They’d no memories, and burns covered their body. Teaching them to relive, to be human once again, had felt like it lasted an eternity. For all he knew, he’d doomed them to a much worse state. A state of constant comatose. Where their memories could never come back or else they would suffer consequences and he would have to watch them shutdown completely. It was hell on earth. A trick in the bargain. 

But now. Now that was all gone. All those worries of loving too much, of memories hurting them, that was all in the past now. The future could be clear. Everything from the past had been lost, but those pages could be rewritten. New memories made, new love made.

He holds them to his chest now. They’re asleep, dozed off in the middle of reading some old book bought from a new vendor in the market. Their shoulder presses into his chest and he squeezes. Watching them now he is overcome. 

It comes over him like a tsunami. Drowns him beneath waves of admiration for their strength and courage. The water that fills his lungs is made of his devotion, of his love, for them and them alone. His heart swells inside of his chest with the acknowledgement that nothing, not even death, has stalled the mutual love shared between them. 

He bows his head, gently pressing his forehead to the soft hair adorning the other’s head. He squeezes just that bit tighter. As though they could fill an empty space in his chest. The physical touch not enough. With this love he could consume them, absorb them.

It is a visceral feeling. The desire for them, the love for them, so strong that physical limitations are almost too much to bear. Love could feel like a melding of organs.  
The love he wants and needs, however, is to merely hold them in an actual bed and sleep.

He adjusts his grip on his love, and heads for the bedroom. 

Asra has a love stronger than death and life.  
For but one person, he would freeze the world in its tracks.


	6. Dear Lazarus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the Lazaret and all the Lazaret content I bothered to actually put into writing.

All is fire, and blood, and the screams of dying men. The stench of burning guts, sweltering heat of the incinerator, taste of copper and of fear.   
Doctors wheel and panic. Sky turns to flame in the morning sun, forever and unchanging, sickness without end, sickness without end. 

This is The Lazerat, not where Eos had intended to end up in any sense. But these were deaths as good, and bad, as any other. Doctors pour a body onto the slab, then another, and another. Piled on top of each other like the bricks that made up Vesuvia’s palace. Building the foundations here, to set them ablaze. Bring the castle down, bring the castle down. There’s sobbing coming from the corner, is it her own chest or someone else’s that shakes and can’t get enough air? It doesn’t matter, they will all be set alight soon enough. Shoveled into the incinerator same as everyone else who came before them– stop the spread of the plague, get rid of the dead before they pile in the streets. 

There is blood oozing from eye sockets, from between lips and from nostrils. The plague makes everything red, red like the blood in their eyes and red like the fire that awaits them. Red the same sickening colour of the Count’s prized coats and jewels. Everything wrong with this city comes in the colour  _red._

She was such a sight there, in a corner of The Lazaret awaiting her execution for the crime of being sick. Hair greasy, perfect flammability, and cheeks so hollow and sunken she could hardly be recognized. The sickness ended up taking everything from the afflicted– their homes, families, their very lives. 

Loved ones who left before even catching it.

Asra had left, when the plague started getting bad. When it was more than just returning soldiers and became their wives, their children and neighbours. The store had been cold for a week while he prepared to leave, packing away clothes, his things, asking everyday: “ _Just leave with me, please just go. Don’t die for these people, please let’s just leave.”_ Every time she’d refused.  
Jokes on her now, isn’t it? He’d been right to leave, to survive, and she was here without anyone knowing. Sicker than she’d ever been, breathing her last with the taste of salt, death and fear.

Hands lifted her up under her arms, dragging her towards the slab now. To be burned and discarded same as everyone before her, same as everyone after her. 

She thinks of Julian now. Of his sleepless nights trying to figure out a source, a reason, a cure for this plague. Doctor number zero six nine. She laughs, high pitched and strained. Isn’t it so  _ironic_ , the dead plagued apprentice of one of the doctors dedicated to the cure. And he didn’t even  _know._  Now that was cruel of her wasn’t it? She wondered how he’d find out, when he’d notice. Perhaps he was looking for her now, perhaps he was actually  _sleeping_. 

They’d spent so many nights pouring over books and other diseases. Looking at other symptoms, other cures. Overlooking how magic, leeches, and the humors affected the afflicted. Trying to provide comfort when death was inevitable. It was always inevitable.   
There was comfort in working with each other. The work and company proved a distraction from the state of the city, and a distraction from the void left behind by Asra’s disappearance. And Julian could always use someone to ensure he ate, slept occasionally, and to talk to for new ideas.

Perhaps it was friendship, perhaps it could’ve been more if not for the circumstances and the fresh wounds.

He’d at least figure it out at some point– she’d hope. Asra… Unless he came looking, or someone went looking for him, he’d never find out.  
That brings tears to her eyes.

The last few days before he left were quiet. They barely talked, and shied away from each other. Their decisions seemed final, like it had been sewn into their fates long before the plague had come. Even now she missed the smell of his favourite tea and the warmth of his chest against her back. The weight of his head on her lap and the feel of his magic brushing up against her own. 

Smell of burst guts, taste of salt, copper and of fear. 

He left, does that give him a right to know?  
Could she have of sent him any sort of notice if he did?

She is loaded onto the slab, atop the corpses and still living bodies of others. 

“ _I’m sorry.”_

All is fire, and blood, and the screams of dying men. The stench of burning guts, sweltering heat of the incinerator, taste of copper and of fear.   
Doctors wheel and panic. Sky turns to flame in the morning sun, forever and unchanging, sickness without end, sickness without end.

* * *

_Under a moonless sky, a man digs at the shoreline of a ashy beach. His blood leaking into the sand and his tears watering it down._

_At long last he pulls on something, and lifts from the earth a jawbone. A final piece of the puzzle. He clutches his collection to his chest and cries out. The only sound on the island beyond the waves against craggy rock, the sound of fire and ragged breathing._

_The Lazaret always has something to take from you, and a part of you never truly leaves that island._


	7. Masquerade night

A cockatrice is a temperamental thing. A creature so vile that at a whim it could turn to stone any who met it’s anger, else they could meet their end at a poisoned talon or sharp beak. 

A griffin is a noble beast. A proud hunter, with graceful wings and the stare of a king. These creatures are revered, respected, for all their expertise in the art of death and destruction. 

By all accounts, it should be the griffin that he welcomed into his arms. Yet, Asra laid back on the nest of pillows that had slowly been taking over the bed for a period of months, with a cockatrice the size of a small cat on his stomach and the head of it’s owner on his chest, her hand on his opposing shoulder. A single golden ring glittering in the slivers of light that come through the curtains. 

It’d been eight months since the day Eosphorus has laid eyes on it. Weak and small in the red market during their search for a  _particular_  herb. An exotic creature peddler had an entire display of beasts, chained up or caged. The cockatrice had been shoved back, not as readily displayed as the other–  _prettier_ –creatures were. In that moment, when Eos’ arm slipped out of Asra’s, there was a singular desire that would dominate her until it was fulfilled. 

She refused ‘no’ for an answer. The sight of the cockatrice stirred something hard and passionate in her. A sort of passion that Asra rarely saw outside of their home or for anyone but two people– in a variety of meanings.

That afternoon, rather than coming home with what they’d set out for. Asra and Eos had spent the night researching cockatrice.

Eight months on, and Asra had to be concerned every so often about Stinky Little Bastard Boy trying to bite his toes off. 

But peaceful moments like this, where he could have an arm around Eos while she clung to his side in her sleep, made everything all worth it. Even the bandages on his toes when Stinky Little Bastard Boy bit down too hard.

Peace doesn’t last. It never does.   
It ends with the flap of wings. The hiss of a cockatrice and the cry of a griffin, hard knocks on the store door downstairs and the sound of a masculine voice through the open window. All the noise stirs Eos, shifting on his chest to glance at the window. She heaves a sigh and turns, burying her face into his shoulder. He can’t see her face, but he knows exactly what expression she’s pulling. He squeezes her, trying to rouse her.

“ _Do you think if we’re quiet enough he’ll think we’re not home?_ ”

“ _I don’t think so._ ”

* * *

_When Hyperion and Eosphorus first arrived in Vesuvia there was hardly a difference between the two of them when they stood side by side. Eos a late bloomer with little curve and a dour expression. Hyperion still with some baby fat to cover up masculine features with feminine ones.  
The difference between them was their eyes. Eos with eyes the colour of daisies and heat, eyes that blended in with places that grew saffron and the warmth didn’t go down with the sun. Outlined with heavy dark lashes, the barrier between sun and skin. Hyperion didn’t share his sister’s vibrant colour in the eyes. Instead it was as though someone plucked the reflection of the moon from the ocean and place it onto his eyes. Leaving two silver disks to surround his pupils. Forever reflecting moon and stars. _

_As all mischievous duos, the neighbourhood around them was terrorized by them during their stay. A combination of visual similarities, imperfect magic, and wit giving them fuel for harmless pranks out of boredom and a new sense of freedom._

_Yet when it came for their downfall, when they got caught. Eosphorus allowed the blame to be heaped on her by their neighbours._  
For all intents and purposes,   
Who wouldn’t blame a cockatrice over the griffin?

* * *

The knocking persisted. As it always did and always would. For all of her efforts Eos could never compete against the volume of Hyperion’s need for attention. Stinky Little Bastard Boy flew off of Asra’s stomach, launching off with a particularly hard back leg kick that forced a huff of breath out of him. With a look shot at the cockatrice, Eos shifted atop of Asra again. Pressing her lips, and then bringing her teeth, to his neck as she moved over and across him to get out of the nest of pillows and fabric. Though her expression barely changes, Asra sees the sparkle in her eyes and the momentary uplift of her lips at his shiver and sigh. 

“ _Well, best see what he has in store for us today, hm? If we keep him waiting too long he might break the door down.”_

_“I doubt it, he’d just as like scale the walls and crawl on in.”  
_

_“Don’t give him ideas.”  
_

* * *

_Eosphorus and Hyperion were as thick as thieves and had as much honor as one thief between them when they were younger. If there was trouble to be had, then by them it was. With little freedom and nigh on constant supervision, acting out as they did should have of been expected. The not getting caught could largely be contributed to imperfect and self taught magic. Yet it served the purpose well enough._

_Yet, being relocated to Vesuvia permanently to take over their disgraced aunt’s store, that is where their bond began to thin out._

_– “All you do is spend time with that lovesick street rat you found all those years ago–”_

_“He’s my– Never mind what he is, what concern of yours is it? I do more than my share at the store,_ and  _I make sure we’ve got food for the week. I like spending my spare time with him.”_

 _“I’ve asked you time and time again to go out on the town to have fun like we used to with me but you’re always doing something with_ him,  _have some care for your own flesh and blood for a change.”_

_“You’re acting like a brat, Hyperion, at least Asra has a sense of damn humor.”  
_

_“That’s a laugh coming from the one cunt this side of the continent who’s face is practically made of fucking_ stone _!”  
_

* * *

It’d been twenty three days since Asra had learned of what the plague had taken from him. Since he’d come back to the city with bleeding fingers and skull fragments clasped tight between them. 

There’s barely any light in the room. Just the slivers of moonlight that flutter between curtains and the faintest glow from magic symbols that lay on the surface of the item in Asra’s hands. Long fingers caressing the back of it, head bowed down low over it. Like a madman obsessed with his last possession, or a dragon guarding the one thing it truly treasures.

He tilts the item up, his magic keeping the pieces together and in shape. Looks deep into the darkness where golden eyes once sat. 

The skull shakes in his hands, his chest feeling fit to cave in on itself with the sobs that continue like earthquakes and aftershocks through his body. His face has been wet with tears for days. He can’t even muster himself to look at the cockatrice that pushes his head against Asra’s hand, or respond to Faust’s concerned questions. 

He raises the skull, presses tear wet lips to where her hairline would’ve once been just before in a fit of temporary rage the cockatrice tears down the curtains over one of the windows. The sudden light makes Asra his in pain and draws his attention towards the source of the unwelcome sun. 

He gets up, intending to fix the curtains to sit in the dark once more. As he does so, picking up the fabric from the ground, he hears a crier announcing some odd thing or another.

Announcing that any and all eligible men or women should go to the palace to seek a cure for the plague that was sweeping through the city. 

In an instant his mind is made up. The skull placed on a purple silken pillow, his coat thrown on and for the first time in days he conjours water to wash his face and hair in.   
It’s no secret that the count has had a fascination with magic. Fascination means research materials that Asra may never have of been able to access before.  
If he has to lie a little to get to them, then so be it.

He doesn’t care for the plague.  
But he does care for what he’s lost.

* * *

The last time Hyperion came to Vesuvia was long after his sister’s death. 

He’d received word of it, as far as he could tell, two months after it. The letter Eos had sent had been delayed, and Asra’s had been merely written late.

 _If not for that delay_ , he muses every time he thinks on it,  _then maybe she’d of been given better honor than dying alone._    
(Then again, he supposes that was the sort of thing she’d want. No last minute of seeing distraught faces looking over her as she succumbs to deadly plague. No smiling through tears, or last goodbyes. Just a memory of how the people she loved were as when she saw them last– unconcerned, happy, ignorant.)

The city had changed with the death of it’s previous count and with the courtiers in charge. Rumor had it the countess was in a coma, unfit to rule at the least. The city felt as though it were falling apart after too long spent trying to hold itself together under the fist of some great inside threat. 

He didn’t let anyone know he was coming back, of course. The family back home was still preoccupied with how best to lay someone to rest with no body or ashes to bury, and anyone in Vesuvia was someone he didn’t want to see. 

He comes here to remember things long before there was a difference between ‘ _Hyperion_ ’ and ‘ _Eosphorus_ ’.

He does not get that.

Instead, as he walks through the markets and examines the wares of vendors, he spies the form of someone he did not want to see, and someone he did not expect to see. 

Further into the crowd, white hair standing out, was the magician Hyperion’s sister had been practically infatuated with since their first meeting. A sign of deviance from Hyperion and Eosphorus to their own individual senses of identity and self. 

He is also the magician who left his sister, who was not there when she contracted this ‘Red Plague’, and was not there when she died of it.   
He remembered the letters, sent more out of obligation than anything, detailing the events that lead to Asra walking out and her apprenticeship under a local doctor. 

Hanging onto his arm was a wisp of a woman, a few inches shorter than him. At first glance it seemed like it could hardly be who he thought it was. Her hair too unkempt and almost greasy. The thinness in her limbs was uncharacteristic, the dead look in her eyes as she stared straight ahead. Then there was the burn scars, crawling up her body like sickening ivy.   
Yes, at first glance that could not be his sister.

Yet it is that dead and dour expression, the colour of her eyes and the tattoo on her chest that indicates otherwise. 

He acknowledges all of these facts. Watches Asra speak gently to her, pressing an item into her hands for her to feel before placing it in the basket on his other arm and continuing on. His sister follows along blindly, unaware as to her surroundings. Like a walking doll, with no desire to live.

He turns away, and he leaves.  
And he never comes back.

* * *

This was both Eos’ technical first and hopefully last masquerade. Despite all the events that had transpired recently– learning of her own death, seeing Lucio’s ghost, and knowing that the plague may return with the presence of those beetles. Despite it all, she was excited for it.

She hummed softly, as she spun her magic to help her get into the half open crinoline that Nadia had provided for the masquerade costume. It was an odd one, not the sort of dress she’d ever remembered wearing– certainly not with so many  _parts_ – but with the carefully written instructions it was a breeze to get it on. With magic for assistance of course. 

She slipped on the next bit of clothing, adjusting it over her chest and over the crinoline. Examining herself in the mirror before she even begins to try and attempt to add on the next bit of expensive detailing. 

True to Nadia’s nature, no expense had been spared on this. The fabric was comfortable, silky to the touch and the shape of each piece of fabric brought forth the imagery of a particularly purple peacock. Especially so with the over-gown appearing to form wings once it draped to the ground and the peacock feathers to be attached to the back. 

She looked it over, at the contraption designed to allow it to blend seamlessly into the dress and passed on it for now. Opting to put on every last bit of jewelry before she even thought of putting it on.

These moments were precious to Eos. They were moments where she could reflect, and she had a lot to reflect on.   
A hand rubbed at the side of her neck, and she was grateful for the high collar so that it would cover the marks left there by one particularly smug magician. 

She slipped on a silver armband, precious stones embedded into it, next her ear cuffs, and the next piece of jewelry and the next. Motions almost mechanical as she got lost into her thoughts.

Before the plague first struck Vesuvia, before Lucio had died, she and Asra had loved each other. Asra evidently had never stopped loving her, and she could only be drawn back towards him.   
She supposed, with a blush, that any moment she’d spent daydreaming of Asra could have merely been carried on from her… Previous life. 

( _If she can even be considered the same person as the one who had died. Has she been resurrected, or is she wearing a dead woman’s face? Does she act the same? If she does, is it coincidence, her own soul reminding her, or Asra’s teachings?_ ) 

She wonders what will happen after all of this is said and done, once Lucio has been properly laid to rest and leave all in peace. Will Asra leave Vesuvia again, would he take her with him? Would he stay with her, here? 

Would she remember anything beyond her own death?

( _She’d been burned atop the corpses of others who had died of the same plague. She’d failed to help find a cure, and now she’ll die here with not a soul knowing until it’s too late.  
She’ll question this again: Is she resurrected, or is she wearing a dead woman’s face?)_ 

She believes she will,  _hopes_ she will, regain more memories as time goes on. With a snort, she wonders if she’ll accidentally regain a memory of herself and Asra in the middle of having sex. She half hopes so, and is half mortified at the thought.

She slips on a final piece of jewelry, a blue jewel on a long golden chain that reaches her naval. A darker blue than Asra’s own, and a more geometric cut. But a similar stone nonetheless. 

Knowing she’s little time left, she attaches the tail to the small of her back and leaves the room to begin her participation in the masquerade.   
Questions burn at the back of her mind, but one thing is clear:   
Tonight is a night of change.


	8. Unknown fates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this before we learned of Asra's teapot-phobia and I'm not going to rewrite it so sue me

Vesuvian nights were humid this time of year, begetting mesh to be nailed over windows to keep the bugs out and to let the air in. thicker blankets were traded for having thin cloth that only ended up crumpled at the ends of beds and mornings became lazy things with open late shops and scorching roads.

This was a night just like that, where Asra’s magelight floated just outside the window to discourage the worst of the insects from coming near the window netting and the owner and attendant combo slept together on the twin sized bed above the store. The one saviour from the heat gained from the night was the weight of the distinctly cold Faust draped across their bodies. Against Asra’s back, over Eos’s stomach.

It was too hot to be close to another person, to wrap yourself around them and breathe them in.

So they weren’t touching. Or, at least, not really. An arm loose over far apart torsos, the feel of a foot against an ankle, a hand occasionally coming to stroke Asra’s hair in his sleep.

There isn’t just a lack of physical affection able to be given and taken on hot nights, it takes the ability to sleep too. Eos almost always lasted throughout the night, if not more fitful than usual. With tossing and turning that could emulate the swaying of a ship. For Asra, his much appreciated sleep came in bursts before he woke and fell asleep again in a cycle.

Falling asleep again wasn’t always instantaneous, while for some it could seem like he fell asleep on a whim it appeared on these nights his mind would flip a coin to decide whether it would be easy or hard. Heads easy, tails not so.

He kept landing on tails it seemed.

Another jolt to consciousness and Asra gives up on sleeping for the moment, knowing full well it’d be for naught at this point with the first lights of dawn creeping over the horizon. It casts a beautiful glow into the living space of the store building. It isn’t strong enough to send scattered rainbows through the crystals Eos had taken to hanging up a month or so ago, but it was just enough to make the room look as warm as it felt.

He sat up slowly, Faust slithering over onto Eos’ side of the bed and curling up on her– retrieving a soft “humph” in return at the added weight. A chuckle rises in his throat, and he pulls the discarded blanket at the foot of the bed over Eos’ legs after he stands and heads for the kitchenette section of the living space.

If one loved open floor building designs, they would love the area above the store.  
There was only so much room available, and sectioning bits and pieces off with walls would only waste what space there was. So what if it all ended up being one (by a technicality two) rooms, there was no part of Asra that Eos had not seen and vice versa.   
They were comfortable with each other, comfortable being with each other. So the design choices of the person who had built the building so long ago had not been an issue for a long time.

He padded carefully over to the stove salamander; pinching one end of a holly twig bundle while the creature sniffed carefully and accepted the early morning meal and gift before getting to work on lighting the stove.

He grabbed a box from the shelf above the stove, opening up to peruse the available wrapped packets of tea. His fingertips brushing over a very familiar looking bundle. Lapsang Souchong. He could’ve sworn it’d run out some time ago. It certainly hadn’t been in the market last time they’d gone out for groceries– a disappointing fact.

A sudden snort from the bed knocked him from his musing, and gave him the answer to it’s presence in the teabox.

He plucked the bundle from the box, placing it down on the counter next to the stove before filling the iron kettle with water. Placing it atop the stove before beginning the rest of the morning ritual for these summer days.

Lately things had been slow for the store– he pulled the privacy curtain closed behind him and filled the bucket with water– though it’d always had lows and highs when it came to customers. Even back when Eos’ aunt ran the store, even when it was just Eos and her brother Hyperion, and even now when it was him and her. Tarot was always popular, who could resist a love or fortune reading in this age of superstitions? It was the rest of the store and their stock that could wax and wane in popularity like the moon. Eos’s talent with alchemy or salve making could go wasted for months before the demand required she be up at all hours of the night to catch up on orders.

Though the dark circles under her eyes could be shocking in those busy nights, the relief and excitement she exuded was a positive out of it all. Though he’d always coax her to bed regardless.

He stripped himself of his nightshirt, dropping it outside the curtain and lowered his head into the bucket. The water was cool as he dunked his head in. if he wasn’t awake before, he would be now. He shivered as the water dripped down his back and chest, pulling a bottle of the perfumed oil Eos favoured so he could run it through his hair.

He was finished washing up for the day by the time the water was hot enough, efficient and quick, he dried himself off and pulled on the clothes he’d worn the previous day before putting the tea into the water. Two cups waited on the counter where they’d been left yesterday, with a quick wash he put them by the stove for when everything was ready.

He looked over his shoulder, back towards the bed, and smiled as though every star in the sky had come out just for him.

Eos and Faust had rearranged themselves in his absence. Faust winding around Eos’ legs, while Eos had at some point grabbed onto Asra’s pillow and buried her face in it. Spread across the bed, there’d be no getting back into it at this point.

The light was getting stronger now, the hints of rainbows beginning to shine through the crystals at the window. Landing on the bare skin of her thighs, arms, her cheek and her stomach. If his fingers could trace and feel along her skin for an eternity, he’d take that opportunity.

He leaned back against the counter, waiting for the tea to steep and in the meantime he can just admire. Admire the rise and fall of her chest, the cascade of hair against the pillows, the slight twitch of her feet in the middle of a dream.

* * *

 

**There’s a future where he stands like this on a different morning and looks at a different-yet same woman. Covered in burns and flesh half eaten away; her sleep painful, her waking moments painful, and made even more so by a lack of understanding. He stands there and wonders if it would’ve been more merciful to let go– but the twisting of his heart and an inner selfishness, a need to repent, would never have of let him choose anything different.**

**On a different morning, with a same-yet different woman he could not dream of touching her like he once had anymore. And his need for a bittersweet cycle begins, for what is more painful than something unfamiliar, yet familiar, being out of your reach.**

**There would be a thousand more mornings before he could feel comfortable in that bed again without worrying that his hands are leaving behinds burns on her skin.**

* * *

 

In a few more minutes, tea is left to cool on the counter and he begins work on making breakfast. The smell of cooking food rouses Faust first, coaxing her to slither off the bed and find herself wrapped around his torso.

He loves mornings like this, where he is free to forget about the world around them and focus on an eternity of her, and her, and her and him, and _them_ , and them, and them. Where the love that was overflowing in his chest filled the room and he could drown in it happily.

These mornings are lazy things, when the weather makes the world feel like melting wax, or like time has been covered in syrup. Left to try and push through the sticky substance and get on with the day. The world barely seems to turn in the hot sun, and he doesn’t mind.

Breakfast is simple, and the tea is still hot. Everything placed on the table in the centre of the room before he heads towards the bed. He climbs over her, holding himself above her to press his lips to her cheek, then her ear, forehead chin and nose. She stirs beneath him, a hand coming up to cover his mouth to stop him. He can only laugh in return, kissing her palm and wrist.

The same arm snakes around his neck, pulling him down onto her. Anything for five minutes of extra sleep during those humid nights. He can’t let her win this one, opting for picking her up in his arms instead– like a knight in shining armor rescuing a maiden from dragon’s fire. She whines and groans, but clings to him all the same. The day must start, and she knows that. Best start it with breakfast that can be enjoyed, rather than rushed.

After all, today would be the day the contagion gets out of control.

* * *

 

**There’s a future where they argue over this. Over plagues, the worth of love verses lives, and the costs of running away. There’s a future where the only fire is Eos’ determination to help the people of this city, and Asra’s desire to leave them to their fates.**

**In that future, a chair is overturned and the stove salamander wouldn’t come out of hiding for hours. By the evening, every thing that screamed Asra in the building would be gone. And in her frustration, Eos would tear crystals down from their hooks, would rip decorative cloth from the wall and the room would be chaos.**

**And after that,  
After everything that building had been for her,  
There would be nothing left inside of it for her after that.**


	9. Courtiers AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post all of these as the one chapter but i am lazy so youre welcome

There is something that persists even when fate becomes reversed. There are aspects of the world that will not change, cannot change. The rain will always fall, and everyone will still bleed red. You cannot stop the river from reaching the ocean, but you can change the mountains it passes through.

The Devil’s plan was fraying. Lucio’s recent infection was, though well deserved in Eos’ opinion, putting a damper on events. Without him, without  _all_ of those who could mantle The Arcana, it would take more years yet for The Devil to come unto the world and reshape it as he pleased.  
Lucio did this to himself really. Taking Vlastomil’s deal and starting the plague, not delivering his side of the bargain. It was his vanity that motivated him to call all sorts to the palace to search for a cure. Not the dead in gutters and sewers, not the dying at The Lazaret. No petition spurred his heart to action. His desire for self preservation and clinging onto the position he’d won was all he cared for. 

It affected her little, and kept the other courtiers entertained. However, it did cause an influx of people into the palace. All to try out their cures, all to test their theories in Valdemar’s sickening dungeon. Some left, some of them got infected themselves and became test subjects in turn. 

A few,  _just_  a few, stuck with it. Avoided the bite of red beetles, avoided swallowing the blood, spit, or bile of the infected. Kept themselves clean, kept themselves safe. Else they would avoid the test subjects all together, seeking other methods to cure the disease. Some looked through books, seeking magical means or researching history to see if this had ever been cured before. That all meant they invaded the palace library.

She hated that.

The library had been a reprieve, so many locks. It was hard to summon her to Lucio’s inane meetings or demands when one had to sort through keys and chains to get to her. Now it appeared some of Lucio’s  _honored guests_ had taken it over. The desk covered in messy scrawl and anatomical diagrams, a corner dedicated to  _pillows._ The order of the room disturbed with new factors, the identity of it sullied. 

She still had use of it, so the new inhabitants and her worked around each other. Not intentionally on their part, of course, they could hardly recognize that their patterns had been studied and committed to memory so that they would never run into her.

Of course, until their patterns changed.

It was late in the evening when Eosphorus entered the library. A day of just barely bothering to manage the affairs of the public. The library would be welcome in order to avoid the ravings of Lucio and the insanity that came when all the courtiers came together, coupled with every  _other_ occupant of the palace. It was enough to make one regret immortality. 

She pressed the door carefully closed behind her, not bothering to look about the room as she twisted her arm to turn each lock on the door. Head resting back against the old and thick wood. All sound from the outside muted, as though one stepped into a new world entirely. Now she could relax, forget the world around her and continue her own, private, research. No royalty to obey, no one to deal with. Just isolation.

There was a shuffling sound coming from a corner of the room, she tilted her head back down, casting an eye over the details. Waiting for another movement. 

It didn’t take long to detect where it came from, a snake appeared along the shelves. Tongue flicking out to taste the air and head bobbing towards Eosphorus. Despite herself, she smiles at the animal. Taking a few steps forward towards the shelves and offering out her hand, palm up, to them. One long, black finger nail gently scratched at the underside of the snake’s head. 

“Oh, you’re a darling thing… Snuck onto the grounds did you? Well, it’ll be our little secret then won’t it?”

The snake persisted as an inhabitant of the library from then on. Greeting her when she escaped there in the late evenings. Sliding across her shoulders as she settled at the desk, or climbing the bookshelves as Eos stood on ladders looking for rare titles. The companionship of an animal was far preferable to that of any mortal.

She’d become quite comfortable with the snake, offering it no name and no title to refer to it by. More than once she’d been tempted to take it with her, but it seemed quite reluctant to leave the room. She let it be after that, making no move to remove it and merely sitting with it during her library hours. 

It was storming the day Eos came across the owner of the snake. Dragging himself in like a wet cat, his hair plastered to his face and eyes rimmed red.  _From tears_ , she’d think later in the night as she went to bed,  _he must have been crying._  

When he entered the room, Eos saw several emotions flash across his face. Surprise first, recognition mixed in. He’d had to have of seen her around, surely, but his reaction seemed to disagree. Then came some guilt, like a dog that had been caught digging a hole in someone’s prized garden. There were others too, but she made no effort to remember or analyse them. 

“ _I didn’t expect anyone to come in here,_ ” She’d said as she stood up from the desk. Gathering her tomes under her arm. The snake that had been her companion slid down from her shoulders, down the desk and across the floor to the man standing in the middle of the room. Looking at her like he’d seen a ghost. “ _Is she yours?”_  

The snake winds up his leg, slithering to wrap around his shoulders. 

“ _Are, ah, do I–”_ His voice falters, stammering with each word. She raises an eyebrow at him, walking around the desk to leave the room.

She stops mid stride when he says her name, her  _full_ name. Something no one should know, and yet he does. It sends a cold chill down her spine.

“ _Your brother… He, I used to– The plague…”_

_“He’s dead then.”  
_

_“He… Yes.”  
_

_“Well. What’s your name?”  
_

_“My name? Asra.”  
_

_“Well, then, Asra. I haven’t recognised that man as my_ brother  _since I was but eleven years old. For all I care he died a long time ago, all he’s done now is done the rest of the world a favour by getting it done officially.”_

He blew up then, emotions spilling over. His voice cold and controlled but she could  _feel_ that anger radiating off of him. He told her  _how dare she,_ he said  _he was your brother and now he is dead._ He asked her  _how cold must you be to feel nothing for him?_  

She said nothing. Could say nothing. She had severed herself from that scared little girl years ago, and here he was dragging her  _back_ all because of a narcissistic man had conned him into love and then died.   
She left the room, and that was the last time she saw that snake in the library.

But it would not be the last time she talked with Asra. Though it coloured them, it was not their end.

* * *

There was an animosity that persisted between them in the days following the encounter at the library. There was ice in the air between them. It didn’t go unnoticed, the cold anger aimed at Eosphorus and the distaste aimed towards Asra. There was some questioning of course, towards Asra. None from the other courtiers, none from the Count. There was no need, it was of little importance. Though for fate, it always kept forcing them together.

Asra’s very presence was a point of contention and the latest reason for Eos’ newly stoked ruthlessness in her duties. It was the reminder of Hyperion, not the man himself. Though his words in the library would’ve been more than enough to earn her ire by themselves. The fact that Hyperion was part of her life, again, and tainted it even beyond the grave was infuriating. She’d made something of herself in Vesuvia’s court. She’d become important all on her own! Yet here he always was, always in someone’s spotlight taking her opportunities away from her. Hyperion always had the last laugh.

They’d had a few arguments on Hyperion. She stood by her stance of how selfish Hyperion was, that he could never truly love someone as much as he loved himself. Asra spoke differently on him.

Eos knew well enough that no one knew Hyperion like she did.

“ _You can give and give and give, and there’ll always be someone who never gives back._ ”  

There’d been moments where they’d been forced to interact. The courtiers worked close with the progress of the plague. Vulgora with the eradication of the red beetles, Volta detected plague in food and people. Valdemar… Dissected. Eosphorus meanwhile handled the public. Specifically ‘ensuring’ that water was clean, and public baths were running.

She did not do a great job at that. Though it was hard, the plague infected  _everything_. The best she could do was ensure that nothing was falling apart and let the virus take its course.

It was such thankless work. Always people demanding more.

“ _The water is filled with beetles and plague!”_  
“The aqueducts are filling with red water!”  
“We can’t keep drinking this!”

At least these people had something to drink. Could they not be grateful for that?

In the moments where Asra and Eos were forced to work together, there seemed to be moments where Asra wanted to speak of things that did not include snide remarks that could be dismissed and on topic comments. The first syllable of Hyperion’s name built up in his throat before he forced it away. He would raise his hand to almost touch her shoulder, to gain her attention. Moments where they were left alone filled with a silence that anticipated something from him yet left unsatisfied. It was forming into an annoying itch in her mind.

That did not always colour their interactions. When they could both remain on topic, there turned out to be far more workarounds to her usual method of using the system as a diversion than she’d anticipated. Though Asra, by all means, was supposed to be working with every other ‘honored guest’ to cure the plague he always found some time to poke holes in her solutions. In the end, they only saw each other during her meetings with concerned citizens and when Lucio decided to hold banquets to check on the progress of the cure.

The banquets always glowed with golden light, and the smell of rich food and delicacies from other lands that ladden the long table they all sat at. The courtiers sitting on either side of the table nearest to Lucio. Surrounding him like a hoard of the red beetles that now plagued Vesuvia’s waterways and food stores. On the opposing end from Count Lucio, sat his wife the Countess Nadia. From there, other guests filtered in and found their own seats among them.

Asra sat nearest to the courtiers, forced to sit across from Eosphorus. A glare aimed at Lucio and Eosphorus both scarcely hidden. She knew not what Lucio had done, but with a glance towards him at the corner of her eye, she could still understand the animosity. When it came to Lucio, one either lusted after him or despised him. Sometimes it was both; That’s when it got really interesting.

The conversation at dinner largely consisted of the search for the cure. Lucio was getting worse and worse by the day, or hour more like. His hair becoming greasier, the red more and more obvious. It was becoming disturbing to be around him for some. The servants tried to limit contact for fear of catching the plague. Eosphorus herself wasn’t so sure if The Devil’s bargain would keep her from catching it either, it certainly hadn’t saved Lucio. Rather, a deal was the cause of it.

The conversation remained largely on the plague. It made for unappetizing dinner conversation. Eos taking more to pushing around various items about her plate. In truth, she got sick of this. She had it better than most, but she’d rather not eat herself silly to the point of being overstuffed. This was not of some feign or shallow ‘I am far too rich and aware of my superiority to possibly eat this way’ behaviour. She merely liked the idea of  _moving_  after a meal.

There was a discussion between Asra, Doctor Devorak, and The Count. About their progress. Admittedly the conversation was largely lead by Devorak as he talked on his theories, about how the plague could be blood or black bile based. Leeches, to Lucio’s chagrin, were his main method of a cure attempt.

Eos speared a piece of meat, marinated in one kind of sauce or another, and began to lift it to her mouth. Eyes glancing up.

A flash of red came across her vision, a beetle crawling its way into the cup seated in front of Asra. Without looking at it he reached for it, bringing it up to his mouth. The beetle just barely peeking up over the rim.

If that insect bit him, or worse, if he swallowed it. He’d be infected with the plague, with no deals with magical beings to prolong his life. He’d die. That would be the last person to link her and her brother.

Fate’s weave had been torn apart, the course that lives should’ve gone on had been diverted from their original paths.   
Despite that, there was something inside of Eos. Reminiscent of the young magician that should have of lived in Vesuvia for years in her aunt’s old shop, who kept her hair in a ponytail for as long as possible before brushing and redoing it and preferred old clothes to expensive furs and silk. An Eos that might have been, but wasn’t.

She lunged forward, hand extended to close over the cup and bring it down. Her knuckles brushed against his lips, just barely managing to shoot her hand into the space between his mouth and the cup before slamming it down. The wine inside spilled up over the edges, wetting her palm and the beetle crawled out between her fingers. She snatched it, holding it between her thumb and index finger.

Asra was staring at her. It could’ve been so easy to let him get bitten, to end the itch that he was. To end the last reminder of Hyperion.

She pushed away from the table, crushing the beetle in her fist.

“Volta, Vulgora, check for others. Where there’s one there’s more.” Volta jumped at the chance to investigate further the feast that had been set before them, and Vulgora seemed more than ready to crush any other bugs that happened to be hiding among it all. The table erupted in conversation and panic as Eos left. The remains of the beetle sticking to her hand and cloak billowing behind her. She had to wash her hand, had to boil it. She would not allow herself to end up like Lucio had.

She headed for her office. The best place to barricade herself in until she dealt with this mess. She slid down the door once she had it locked, holding her wrist in her other hand.

There was something inside of her that responded to the feel of Asra’s lips brushing against her knuckles, to the look in his eyes as she slammed the cup down and crushed the red beetle. Something that should’ve begun in different circumstances a long time ago, but was only growing now.

There was something disconnected in her mind, and it worried her.

* * *

There had been a buzzing since the events with the beetles inside the palace. Lucio had Volta and Vulgora scour the entire palace, from floor to floor, with a practical legion of servants to root out the infestations. Previous holes and cracks left ignored for favour of attending to more important details were beginning to be filled in and covered up. Gardens were cut back to ensure no nests had manifested in the undergrowth. 

Eos had been avoiding Asra.

There had been a buzzing in her head. A disconnect in her head from what she wanted and what she felt.  
She wanted a complete separation of herself from her brother. She wanted to be  _someone_ , outside of a religion of self-important fops. Undefined by family, or other’s choices. 

She felt like her deal was slipping like sand through her fingers. Like the reminder of Hyperion was both tightening bonds and rusting chains. Gears were grinding against blockages.  

She felt a certain disgust settle in her stomach, a defiance against memory of the dead.   
The feel of her heart pumping hard against her chest, of softness against her skin. She feels so much and it only ever manages to piss her off. 

So she avoids the source, and continues with the plans that had been in motion for a very, very long time. 

For the most part, she writes. Sends letters and inquiries. Travels from office to office, delivering letters to be sent and taking their replies back to be analysed. Political reputation must be up kept, but in the mean time she can use them to search for more candidates that The Devil could not find on his own. She writes to Pakra on the behalf of The Count. Inquires about the health of the Countess’ sisters, her father and mother. 

She tells them to send the letters, yet never gets replies. She wonders if the letters were ever supposed to leave Vesuvia at all. 

She does her best to avoid the source of her aggravation, but there are moments where she cannot. She still keeps her distance. 

Lucio holds a party, and she keeps to the upper balconies. Overlooks the dancing figures. Brilliant ballgowns of silky fabrics decorated with jewels and glass. Masks hide the faces but she knows them all the same. She organizes the public after all. 

Those invited to the palace celebrate, ‘ooh’ing and ‘aw’ing over the expenses put into one of Lucio’s final public events. 

The fabric around her chest is too tight, the one who made it made a mess of the measurements. That is her excuse as she watches someone with a shock of white hair hold the waist of a man who looks a little too much like Hyperion but could never be close enough to the real thing. The only person close enough to her brother was her now, and she would never let herself be known for that if she could help it. 

He looks up at the balcony and she knows he saw her watching. 

She turns away. She grabs a glass of wine. In an hour someone else takes her hand, and she leads them in a careful dance across the floor. Blending in with other dancing pairs as that same shock of white hair tries to cut across to find her. 

That is as close as she can get without a thousand lifetimes of living in other people’s shadows culminating into one moment of anger and explosion. She should not care, yet there is that disconnect that urges her to avoid it. To avoid the clashing of things that should not be meddled with.

But fate has a funny way of doing things, even as tattered as it is. 

She was organizing the packing up of Lucio’s so coveted private ball. Servants cleaned the halls, crowding them. It was hard to move through them without bumping into someone. 

It was a small task to send servants here or there, to file papers away and write letters to those who had been invited with thanks and so on. She hurried down the hallways, threading through the crowd with her papers clutched tight to her chest. There is someone walking behind her, five paces, three, two. Trying to catch up to her. She smells spice. It is warm, it smells like the wood of her aunt’s shop that she can remember from her short visits allowed by her mother when she was much, much younger. It smells like the sort of comfort that twists your stomach until you bleed, and bleed, and bleed. 

His hand lands on her shoulder. It is warm against her skin, and he pulls gently so to force her to stop and face him. Her stomach twists to knots, palpitations start in her chest. She turns quickly, expression morphing into indignant. How dare he  _touch_ her like this, how dare  _she_ react to that touch? 

“If you  _require_  something, magician, I do believe we will have to schedule an appointment rather than discuss it in the middle of a–” His expression is soft and for once Eos wishes she could hold back her words and be soft too. There is no more room left on her body for warmth when she is all sharp claws and spines. There is no more garden in her, no poppies or roses. She grows weeds and thorns. 

“We need to talk,” He says and she is angry. She does not want the lilt of his voice in her ears, she does not want his words. She wants peace, complete faith in what she knows. No deviancy.  
No treason.

“Like I said, if we could schedule an appointment first that’d be just great.” 

“Eos, please, I- I just need to–” She knows this will be about Hyperion. Anyone who met him always talked about him, as Eos remembers. It could never be about anyone else. He haunted every conversation, every interaction. Every touch was a longing for  _him,_  he could corrupt and poison anything with a glance. She would not let this keep happening.

“Whatever it is, I don’t  _care._  I don’t give a  _fuck_ about whatever I’ve done that reminds you of my fucking brother. I don’t want to hear a single word about him anymore–” 

“If you would just stop being so  _spiteful_ and just listen to me you’d–” There is anger in his face now. It is cold, with a withering glare. Long ago it might’ve made her cower but now it only makes her stand up straighter. To match him, or show she shall not be underestimated.

“I’d what? Understand that really my brother was an angel? He was a manipulative little shit and–”

There’s a surge in the throng of servants around them. Asra is pushed into Eos, her back hits the wall behind them. There is a hand between her head and the wall, his other hand bracing himself against it so he isn’t crushed against her. Her vision is filled with him, the light that creates a halo around his head. Her hand had been raised to try and prevent his weight from falling onto her when they were pushed and now it just lies against his chest over the red scarf. 

She was never supposed to be a bitter woman. She was never supposed to be wrapped in chains, with her only defense being cruelty and sharpness. 

( _This was not how fate designed them to be. For the first moment they are like this, Asra could swear he saw someone else. No. A different version of the woman in front of him. A version outside of fates’ grasp, who had lived a different life and showed it in different ways. There would have once been a woman who left her hair tied up for days to save time and in a different life he would have loved her too._

 _This wasn’t that woman, but his heart– all that remains after Hyperion’s death– is rushing for her and he_ hates  _it. For every cruel word she’d said about her brother, there was still a core piece inside of her that acted through her impulse to help people. He had seen it, and he had seen it been smothered through the careful application of the bureaucracy she’d been put in charge of. His fingertips dig into the wall. He knows that there is something wrong, the very air has been acrid for a long time well before he ever knew of either of the siblings. He also knows that he hates every feeling he haves for Eos._

_There is something that made her this way, something other than her family._

_He fears that.)_

She looks up at him, annoyance dominates her expression but there is red to her cheeks. She hates her heart for it’s need to skip, and hates her knees for their shaking. He is too close and she can feel his breath. His hand threads through her hair as it moves away from her head. 

“Eos, I–” He looks nervous, glancing away. For all the anger there had been just a second ago, it is coupled with something else. She is afraid of it. She slips out under his arm, feeling just as nervous as he looks. She tries to say something but words fail. She flees. 

* * *

They meet like duelists during combat. Dancing away and coming together again with the grinding of steel on steel, a jab aimed to the ribs or a slash to the chest. Attack and retreat, attack and retreat. It is a dance, a game, and a denial all at the same time. 

Asra denies it vehemently, is repulsed by it. He cannot feel for such a witch, not when that love would force him to stand upon the ashes of The Lazaret and forget everything that happened at that awful place.

( _He observed one of her meetings with concerned citizens from a dark corner. A spell to force the eye to glance over him covered him like fine dust. The people are crying, they are upset and confused. Wanting comfort or recognition of their struggle. They know she is a magician, they want her to fix their issues. How could someone with a command of magic not simply be able to cure the world of this plight?_

_He watches as she stands from her desk, someone has been telling her of The Lazaret, someone sent too early, someone sent when they weren’t sick, asking for recompense, asking for their loved one back._

_Her fingertips graze their cheek, and for a moment he sees something that isn’t there. A woman with dark circles under her eyes and sclera the same red as the carapace of these cursed beetles. It is gone quickly as it comes._

_“_ **You will never regain what you lost here,** _” Her voice carries across the room but it is scarcely more than a whisper. She cannot fix the plague, she cannot bring back the dead, and she will not entertain those thoughts. She is the cauterizing of the wound, the pain that comes with cleansing, the psychosomatic symptoms for ignored issues. No one thanks the pus for drinking up the infection.  
_

_That is what she is, isn’t she?_

_The horrible side of it all._ ) 

Even now as she listens to Lucio’s architects on some new design in his garden he feels regret for all the ways he thinks of her as he’d once thought of someone else.  
He could attribute it to their similarities. The cock of their hips when either of them was holding back something particularly biting. The press of their fingers to their mouths when they tried not to laugh at something. The aura they both gave off, an aura that told tales of control and a mask that hid a much more chaotic being underneath. 

There were things that he only noticed about Hyperion that became apparent when he met Eosphorus. Truths he’d perhaps ignored, or things that didn’t occur to him.

Animals liked her more. Which is not to say that they disliked Hyperion, he was just fine with them. But he was dismissive. Eos was attentive, and judging by what he’d heard from Faust, had quite the affinity for them. There were days when Lucio was stuck in bed that his awful hounds would follow her around. Sniffing at her hands for treats, hand always shooting out of reach whenever they thought to snap. It seemed more instinct than anything. 

She was, in some ways, more selfish than Hyperion. She avoided helping others, allowed technicalities to stand in the way of things.  
But he couldn’t say that Hyperion didn’t take things unowed to him, where she would’ve merely stalled the process entirely. Hyperion was a taker, Eosphorus liked to keep things waiting. Stagnated. 

But outside of the professionalism, she could be kind. 

He’d followed her once, when she thought no one was watching. Out into the gardens, through the maze and out through the gate hidden among the hedges. Followed her deep into the city, watched her hide herself behind cloaks and hoods. Buy food and drop it into the hands of orphans before speeding away. She’d drop a coin here or there for the elderly. This wasn’t something that happened often, but always after  _something_  that he couldn’t quite place. 

She avoided the temple district. Avoided entering it. She’d stand in the middle of the street and look at the buildings from a distance. 

Her behaviour can be abhorrent, she can be horrible. But there was still a person underneath the courtier, a bitter woman but not one without redeemable qualities. He just doesn’t like his reaction to those qualities.

Her fingers curl around the stem of a rose as the architect goes on and on, finger nestled between the thorns as she brings it close to sniff at it. Some strands of hair, breaking free from her delicate curls, fall in her face as she bends to do it. He sees the the rub of her thumb against her fingers in her other hand. The same movement Hyperion does when he knows something would be wonderful for making potions. 

Something inside his stomach twists, and he frowns. He pushes himself up off the ground, away from the tree and it’s fountain companion as he makes his way over to this meeting. Faust slips off of him, heading right for the courtier with the echo of ‘ _Friend!_ ’ in his head as she does. The snake winds up Eos’ leg, coming to drape herself over her shoulders. The conversation becomes clear when he gets closer. New statues, new additions to the city to honor Lucio.

‘ _Before he dies’_ is the unspoken part from the architect. An immortalization of the ‘beloved’ count. So no one could forget.  
Not that anyone could as the city disintegrated around him. 

She turns her head, to address him, to question why he’s there. Before she can, before the architect can object, he grabs her hand and starts running. Pulling her along.

At first she stumbles, struggles to keep up and questions what he’s doing but before long she is running along side him. She is smiling and that same twisting feeling in his gut appears again. 

He smiles.


	10. The Count Asra AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a second part of this au i've written but it's lucio based so that'll have it's own chapter yw

Their hair was soft. The softest thing he’d ever felt, ever owned. He could sit here for hours, just watching them sleep and stroking their hair. By all means, he could. The demands of the city however forever vexed him, forcing him away from his beloved. Forcing him to leave them unprotected, un-watched, unloved. 

Breeze came in through the window, his brow furrowing as he uses his magic to shut and lock it. He’d thought he’d instructed the ones who fixed the guest room up to ensure the window couldn’t be opened. What if someone tried to come in through it– to steal his beloved away or to kill them? He couldn’t lose them again, not a second time. It would be so hard to gather the things and people he would need all over again. So, so hard, He couldn’t bare to spend all that time away from them again. It was a pain in his heart that would become unbearable. It would kill him.

A sigh came from them, their head moving slightly to readjust the position on his thighs. 

He would never allow anyone to hurt them. So many people would try, he could already see the looks in the eyes of servants and guards as they passed. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone tried to steal them away or hurt them.

He had to protect them. He  _had_ to. If he didn’t, who knows what would happen? That’s why he had the guards, constantly switched them, had their room in his highest tower. The entrance right by his own quarters. So easy to reach them, so easy for them to come to him if they were in danger. Magical wards were set upon the doors too, just in case. 

He held them close now, changing their positions around. Curling his body around their own like a shield from the world. His magic reaches out to the harp in the corner, softly plucking chords to help lull them both to sleep.

Everything he has done, he has done for them. The city could crumble to dust for all he cared, as long as his love was happy then the world was beautiful. 

“ _Asra?_ ” A tired voice speaks out, he lifts his head, brushing hair out of the face of the magician he held in his arms. Their eyes hooded, ready to fall asleep once again. His heart pounded against his chest, he felt as though he could fly whenever they looked at him. 

“ _Go back to sleep, dear._ ” They look like they want to protest. For days they’ve been asking whether they can return to the shop, without guards or supervision. Just to attend to their store, they have to look after it. He knows they’ll ask again. So he presses his lips to their temple and pushes his magic forward. Their head hits the pillow again, silent.

“ _You’re safe here, from all the pain out there, from all the terrible choices people make. They’re poison, but you’re safe here, heart’s sweet anodyne._ ” He hugs them to his chest. Chin on their shoulder. 

There was so much he had to protect them from.   
Even if they didn’t want him to.


	11. The Tower and The Escape

Even at night, when the sun has been gone for hours, the air still feels hot. Humid and sticky. His nerves didn’t help with that, the work he’d done, combined with the sun and the twisting in his stomach, had his shirt stuck against his back with sweat. If there was any bright side to it, it kept it from getting caught on anything. But that didn’t mean he appreciated the sensation. 

His boots hit the ground in quick succession as he sprinted across the courtyard to reach the shadows of the palace walls. Each footfall was as quiet as his work boots would allow. They weren’t made for this type of behaviour, but they worked just as well as any other footwear. 

He pressed against the wall when he reached it, panting hard but trying to even now stay quiet. If he got caught now it’d be the end of it all. He’d be locked away, accused of being some traitor to the throne, accused of attempted murder, accused of  _anything_  and the Count would have him executed.   
His hands curled to fists at the thought, broken fingernails biting into callused palms, but relaxed them. Tonight wasn’t about that, tonight was about liberation, and truth.

No.  
It wasn’t even about that.

The orange glow of torches and the soft clinking of metal as a guard came up to the balcony above him. Looking over the darkened courtyard for but a moment before finding it satisfactory and turning away back to his previous post. The man in the shadows heaved a sigh of relief before walking along the walls. 

The Count  _had_ to put them in the hardest place to reach, didn’t he? A tower as tall as that could take a while to climb, let alone find a way inside of it. Perhaps if he were drunk he could find some miracle way inside, or at least be able to forget about the journey when he woke up in the morning. 

Nonetheless, he had to do this. For himself. 

Fireflies danced near the ponds and pools of water in the gardens, and along the hedges that lined them. It was as though stars had been plucked from the sky and thrown down to decorate this place. It was beautiful. Far too beautiful for the reality of this place.   
The Count didn’t deserve any of the beauty that he’d trapped in here. 

He reached the base of the tower, the entrance only had one guard but if he knew the Count there’d be more all along the way up. Changing on the regular so none of them would get any ideas. He was paranoid these days, very paranoid. For good reason considering his reasons for being here. 

Instead of taking the stairs he reached up, getting a hold on the gaps between the stone bricks. Just deep enough to climb, not comfortably but it was doable. He’d have to be quick, and avoid the windows. 

He hefted himself up, and kept reaching and pulling, reaching and pulling. His fingers bent painfully with the weight they had to hold up but he ignored it. He wasn’t going to give up now. 

It’d been difficult getting the information. No one wanted to risk getting the headsman’s axe by saying the wrong thing, but help the right people and find the right servants who still had little fear of death and you could find out anything. He knew that if he got caught, they’d be just as well off as he would be. For his own neck, and theirs, he had to do this properly. 

Even if he did get away without consequence, he’d never have a chance like this again. Security would increase tenfold and if anyone so much as looked in their direction they’d be better off dead.

Just like most of the city under this Count’s rule. Buildings all over the place were falling apart at the seams. People unable to afford their upkeep and only willing to pay for help when it was completely inhospitable. Even then some went homeless, starving and dehydrated. As long as you were out of sight of the important people, you were barely human according to the royalty here in the palace. People were getting sick too, and it was catching. The other day he’d seen even a nobleman with the beginnings of that telltale red sclera. It’d sent knives through his stomach, a nervous sweat building up. 

It was understandable. No one wanted to get infected, least of all with the plague. Not when your choice of funeral was burnt on the street or shipped off to The Lazaret. 

He reached the outside of the highest floor in the tower. Placing himself beside the window. Adjusting his grip and placing his boot as extra leverage on the windowsill. He carefully reached for the window, he expected it to be locked but that didn’t mean he enjoyed being right. 

The curtains were closed, so he shifted again. Holding himself over the window so that he could pick the lock. It was difficult, switching from one hand to the other in order to get it. But after a few minutes of work he heard a click and the window pushed open. If anyone tried to lock it, they’d know for sure that it’d been messed with. But that’d happen long after he was gone and was hardly his concern. 

He reached his leg in first, finding solid ground before pulling the rest of his body inside. The room offered no protection against the outside humidity, so he’d have to find relief after this adventure. 

It was dimly lit, a few candles near the bed in the middle of the room. Sitting at a  desk, blissfully unaware of his presence, was a figure.

He crouched down, slowly making his way over as the figure yawned and continued to read by candlelight at the desk. A page turning the only sound in the entire room. 

When he was close enough, he stood up, one arm moving around their torso to keep them from moving and the other going around their mouth to prevent them from shouting. They made the attempt, but it was muffled and unheard through the wooden door that separated them and the outside world. 

He hushed them harshly, holding them tight against him to prevent escape.

“ _Shut_ it, just listen, it’s  _me._ ” An elbow to the ribs taught him all he needed to know on their memory, or lack thereof, of him. He’d suspected it, of course. There was always something odd about their behaviour after their… Disappearance. 

“It’s  _me_ ,” He tried again, more desperation in his voice than there’d been before. It must’ve been what momentarily stopped the other’s struggling, “It’s Lucio,  _remember_ me, damn it.” They start to struggle again, confused or afraid he doesn’t know so he goes on. He tells them stories, of laughter shared between them and of things no one else but they and he could know. Of their fear of scorpions and how they hated the taste of beetroot but loved the chutney they could make out of it. 

They stop struggling and he takes his hand away from their mouth.

In truth. His heart is breaking. He’d  _suspected,_ of course he suspected, this would happen but for him to be right was cracking his rib cage open and ripping his heart out. 

When the one person in the entire city who was in the slightest way decent, when the  _first_ person in the entire world to show you proper love, forgot you. Who wouldn’t be later reduced to tears, and anger, and frustration. When that person forgets, and is isolated within the palace that represents nothing but a Count who couldn’t care less about anyone but his  _obsessions_ who could fault someone for the things they did or said about them? 

Later, he would drink and he would mourn but the next morning he would arise with the vigor that only a man who had lost everything twice over could.   
He could  _save_ them, if he just planned it properly. 

* * *

He leaves behind questions and doubts when he climbs out the window that night. His coming planted seeds in the wake of his footsteps, seeds that would grow and be ripped out and would grow again. 

It is all necessary in the face of the danger coming.

* * *

It is the third visit when he slips up. When he makes them laugh with a flirtatious joke and a surprised look comes over their face. When he almost leans towards them, to touch them, to kiss them, and stops himself. 

There is so much they have forgotten, and how he has to hide  _all_ of it lest they know too much and put themselves in danger or the Count begins to suspect something is afoot. 

* * *

They forget him four times over a period of months. Each time reduced to a coma for a week or more afterwards. He cannot bare it anymore, he cannot stand it. 

* * *

It is the seventh time that it happens that he risks everything. This is not the last time he climbs in through this window, but it is the most important incident of it occurring. 

He knew it had happened again by the Count’s melancholy. By the tearing down of buildings that vexed the white haired bastard. He had yet to make a public appearance with the magician, their presence in the palace a well kept secret, but it wasn’t hard for Lucio to guess the cause for the Count’s latest session of lashing out against the poorer members of Vesuvia. 

There’s a guard in the corner of the room, seated on a chair to watch over the sleeping body of the poor magician. He’d apparently dozed off, his sword fallen onto the floor next to the chair. 

Lucio landed as light as a cat on the floor, for now ignoring the sleeping figure on the bed and turning his attention to the one in the chair. He pulls out a knife from his belt, he has one chance to make this work.  _One_ chance to end a continuous cycle and he won’t allow himself to fail. 

He pushes the knife through the throat of the guard. Too easy to slit the throat, no, he drives it deep in and out through the back of the guard’s neck. Blood sprays and covers his face but he hardly notices. Instead heaving the guard towards the door, and tossing him down the spiral staircase. It will draw attention in but a few seconds but he’ll be out by then.

He gathers the body in the bed, wrapping their sheet around them and leaves through the window as he has every other time before. 

By the time the entire palace is light up with torch light in search of the missing magician, Lucio has disappeared into the decaying city with his prize. It may not be their last encounter with The Count and everything that accompanied him. But it gave the magician a reprieve, a chance for their mind to recover from the damage magic had done. 

Lucio expected a few months at the most and his head on a block.

The people around them, those that  _knew_ and those that didn’t, gave them three years.


End file.
